Howling at the moon

I don't know how you are coping in this world as it gets more claustrophobic & constricted by the day, but I'm gagging.

My greatest solace & soothing at present comes from good friends who are not afraid to speak openly & question.

Within the confines & I do most certainly mean 'confines' of daily life I am floundering. The voice that I switched off many years ago seems to be demanding now to speak, but the society which created the need for that, is not at all receptive. I seem to be biting my tongue a lot, I am angry at work, I am angry at how hard it it is just to get by & I'm furious that I have allowed myself to settle for such a 'little life' - if I were a wolf right now, I'd be howling long & hard at the moon.

I am in the process of reading a book called the Birth of Pleasure by Carol Gilligan. It is an exquisitely elegant & heart-filled book that I recommend to all whose souls are crying out. It deals with the loss of our voices & our deep fears that pleasure always leads to pain & many other wonderful, wonderful things that need to be said & heard.

I was reading a little at lunchtime at work today, it's too rich to read too much at once, when I came across this quote from Luce Iriagary, a French feminist :-

"What I wanted from you, Mother, was this,
That in giving me life
You too remained alive."

The reason I include this was that it resonated deeply. When I have looked back on my none to brilliant childhood & thought' if there was one thing I could change about that time, what would it be? The answer has been that I would have wanted my mother to be alive - now she was vertical & breathing, but that's not what I call alive - I imagined a mother who had vitality, energy & a life of her own, because that would have meant that I could have had one too. I didn't need magical powers or money or toys or whatever. As long as I was unrestricted I had no doubt that I could make my life whatever I wished. And that's the thing, we don't need all the gimmicks & the time saving devices & the entertainment if we are unrestricted.

Unrestricted, we would have the all the monumental creativity, ingenuity, humour & friendship to 'MacGuyver' any situation & have a bloody good time to boot.

That's it I just needed to howl out some frustration. Feel free to join in.

...and what do you mean by that?

A good friend picked me up & chucked me over his shoulder into a ditch tonight, via email.

He has been helping with my inquiries into the Great Divide of man & woman. Previously he pointed out to me the female habit of reading things into conversations & assured me that what he says is what he means. I have done my best to accept & incorporate this strange notion into our chats. But...tonight I find that I have slipped up again. What really gets me is that I couldn't see it until it was pointed out to me. It brought into sharp focus the huge difference in the very fabric of male & female conversation.

Our whole society revolves around the words we speak to each other - at no time in recorded history has the spoken word been so relied on - the 'communications' business takes the very words from our mouths & transmits them anywhere in the world.

So what happens when two different languages are spoken, using the same words?

I am a woman - I speak the woman's language - the most modern analogy I can think of is to say I have a decoder, when someone speaks to me I decode it. What that means for me is that when you say something I will check for all kinds of hidden messages, tone of voice, the way you phrase things, to find out what you really mean - women do this automatically, we can read each other at 500 paces. Men are just downright contrary because they do not NOT say what they mean. What would have happened if the British had put un-coded messages into the enigma machine - it would probably have blown a gasket. I really don't think women are born with decoders, I think it's part of the subtle training of childhood. I have an idea that women throughout the centuries of patriarchy have developed a type of underground communication system, using the same words as their menfolk but in quite a different way. A language that allowed women to understand each other but confusing enough to the opposite sex to allow some freedom of speech. Now this is just an idea, I am very open to alternatives or additional suggestions, the idea is to open some healing & understanding between the sexes.

Perhaps here is the ultimate Babel - when man & woman started talking in different tongues.

In one way it's very funny, but it's also tragic when we do not understand each other.

There is a great scene from the movie Sliding Doors which beautifully illustrates this divided communication. The cheating boyfriend is confronted & confused by his mistress - it goes like this;

Man: 'But you didn't say that's what you wanted."

Woman: "Jerry, I'm a woman, we don't say what we want, but we reserve the right to be pissed off if we don't get it. That's what makes us so fascinating & not a little bit scary."

& that movie was written by a man.

I hadn't planned on starting this topic with language, but it popped up & bit me in the ass so I took note. I shall present ideas as they come to mind in the hope of clearing away some of the sludge that has accumulated over the centuries. I can't help feeling that a healthy respect & partnership between the sexes would create something akin to a healthy & functioning immune system for this world - an immune system capable of dealing with any diseased agenda.

Continuing...

Just a quickie, which I'm assured can be most pleasurable, re my last post on pleasure.

I've kept my eyes open today for further hints & clues as to how to understand & use this guiding light. One thing today really stood out - that pleasure & time DO NOT MIX. Like matter & anti-matter, both cannot exist in the same space together - it's one or the other.

A while ago I read a book called 'The Metaphors We Live By'. There were some excellent insights as to how our perceptions & understanding are altered by metaphors - one of which is that 'Time is Money'. Funny really because are not both those 'inventions' the controlling force behind our savagely civilised world. I'm half inclined to view this as the 11th Commandment, so neatly packaged by the cunning use of the English language & so splendidly marketed via civilised society.

I was going to give you a few examples but really you'll be much better off to go to the site below & just scroll down to THE SYSTEMATICITTY OF METAPHORICAL CONCEPTS - don't be alarmed I don't know what it means either - just start a couple of paragraphs down from that & everything will be alright.
http://theliterarylink.com/metaphors.html

Well that's it really for now just wanted to pass on that idea - if something is a pleasure it cannot be timed, it takes as long as it takes. Time has grown to monstrous proportions while real pleasure has dwindled to a trickle of it's former self. I'm reminded of that wonderful phrase "the heart wants what the heart wants."

Time is the intruder here.

A pleasure to see you

The trail I'm walking through this blog (& uhhmmm that's not me pictured above) has taken some twists & turns that have surprised me & I never really know where a path & I will intersect.

Resurfacing from my article on war memorials I felt a strong tug to look at the great divide in humanity known as man & woman. And it's a bloody tall order I can tell you, but the things we're so used to, that we shrug our shoulders, roll our eyes & continue on as always, may be the very areas where we can claim, reclaim, create or recreate what we most need now - so we have to be willing to lift up rocks & see whats hidden there.

Recently the Celtic Rebel dared to lift up the very slippery rock that housed the world of condoms & bravo to him for boldly going where no blogger has gone before (that I know of)

However before tackling the 'alien vs predator' themes of the great sexual divide, a slight detour is in order - actually it's got one hand behind my back & is insisting upon an introduction - so without further ado, Ladies & Gentlemen I would like to introduce the topic of pleasure.
I'm still working on why this topic has roared it's way into my life, but it's got the same gut pull as all the other topics that I have followed since the birth of 'too long in this place'.

Oh well, it's a dirty job but someone's got to do it.

Now I'm presuming the word pleasure evokes thoughts of a more sexual nature to the boys & possibly a shopping theme to the girls - just kidding (well almost). I'm in the process of reading a tremendous book called the Birth of Pleasure who's ideas connect with & indeed supersede, many of my own re the 'man vs woman wound' (thanks Michael for the name).

I am coming to the conclusion that many of our woes stem from our lost connection to the guiding principle that is pleasure. I feel it is key to a life we vaguely remember or a hint of something that in our stuporific & mechanistic state we can't quite grasp. Pleasure of course is not a thing, an object, rather it's a response, a birthing that comes with the unabashed connection to something that in this moment calls as much to us as we to it.

I am no longer drawn to the idea of oneness, I have found a different track called connection or some such name, where I & something I love at a particular moment or moments can intermingle with each other & I know, feel some marvelous energy is created. Now I come from a catholic background & though it is many years since I put down my cross, it's self-denying tentacles can be hard to shake off, so my journey to pleasure is taking small steps - it started with becoming very tired of the soul-brutality of the workplace & granting myself the pleasure of a cappuccino every day, on my way to work. OK very small steps, but for me it has steadily brought an awakening of more pleasurable things I would like in my life.

This world abounds in messages of abstinence of the soul & plugs incessantly those areas that feed the out-of-control monster cunningly disguised as society. Individual pleasure & I think that's all there is really - you connecting with something, someone whole-heartedly, openly, whoopingly, is incompatible with the structure & forward thrust of society. Pleasure is too random, unpredictable and rambling, often involves little or no money & satisfies in ways that pornography or shopping never will. It rewires the heart & gut connection, a very dangerous thing indeed.

As sure as the emperor was not wearing clothes, we are not experiencing pleasure - we are experiencing the illusion of pleasure. This illusion is brilliantly marketed to each sex, really they've done a top notch job. Meanwhile both sexes are misunderstood, baited & played off against the other, one hand reaches out to embrace & while the other holds a mallet or maybe a frying pan. If we don't see the trap how can we disable it? Many years ago when I was growing up our dog got her paw caught in a rabbit trap, my mother not knowing how to open it, pulled it apart with her bare hands. She saw the trap & did what she had to do to release our dog. We need to see, really see that there is indeed a trap & use any means necessary to break it open. As long as the other sex is in the wrong, is an alien or a predator we will deny ourselves & each other the greatest pleasure of friendship & connection, as well as aiding & abetting the bastards who have too long marketed this illusion.

knickers re-visited

I was at my martial arts class earlier this evening & there was a bit of chit chat before we got underway.

Into this chit chat the trigger word 'cancer' reared it's all to hypnotic head - it seems that yet another member of the human race has succumbed. The news was received in the hushed reverence that I have come to despise & the word 'chemo' set off the understanding nods that now greet it wherever it's toxic little name is mentioned. In keeping with my original post on this topic I silently murmured my own incantation of 'knickers' in the hope that some of the poison might be diluted.

This is the second time in a couple of days I've heard of someone being placed on this particular 'death row' & I'm concerned at the level of acceptance & head nodding that greets it's uninvited & unwelcome presence.

If I hadn't already written an article on this topic I would be doing so now - but seeing as it is already a fait accompli & because I felt a strong urge to re-present it - I'm posting it here.
One point I forgot to mention when I wrote that article was that I checked out the library to see how many books there were for & against cancer - the day I was there, there were 33 books about living with & accepting cancer & 1 lone volume daring to question it - I don't like those odds so I hope you'll join me in saying 'knickers' to cancer.

http://toolonginthisplace.blogspot.com/2008/02/knickers-to-cancer.html

With a sting in it's tail

Over the last couple of months I've noticed a strange little phenomena - from time to time when I'm reading, the letters in words seem to rearrange themselves & suddenly I'm confronted with something quite different.

Two words in particular have stayed with me.

One day the word empire became vampire - I paid attention because it seemed to convey a truth - think of the British Empire - a monster that sucked the wealth & resources out of many a foreign land.

The other word that struck me, though in a slightly different fashion, was the word money - that devastating little word that runs backwards, forwards, sidewards & everywhichwaywards through our lives. The little word that seems to hold more power than almost any other.

Somehow when I looked I saw the word venom - 'money' reversed - no, no silly, it ends in a y not a v you cry, observing my embarrassing mistake, but no I saw venom. The letter Y with the sting in it's tail removed is a V - and in this case it doesn't matter that the sting was removed because the poison is contained in the word itself.

So lets have a look at venom:

"c.1220, from Anglo-Fr. and O.Fr. venim, from V.L. *venimen, from L. venenum "poison, drug, potion," perhaps ultimately connected to venus "erotic love" (see Venus), in which case the original meaning might have been "love potion." The meaning "bitter, virulent feeling or language" is first recorded c.1300"

I'm sure you're not so different from me when it comes to money - especially if you're on the trail to wholeness - probably not particularly interested because somewhere in that whole caboodle something is missing - the satisfaction of exchange that comes with sharing items or services similarly valued. The swapping of goods for coloured paper or coins or bits of plastic is lacking in all sensuality & I've got to a point where sensuality is becoming very important - for me that means the essence of what it is to be a human being as opposed to a machine - all the things that make us different from machines - that's our sensuality - laughter, kindness, chatting, touch, imagination, friendship are just a few.

Somewhere along the way one or many spells have been cast. When I saw the etymology of the word venom, I felt that I was looking at one of them.

The power of words. So how often do you wish for more venom, & how much would it take to make you really happy?

A love potion & a drug - what do you think? It's funny in a way to think that this drug, whose caress we must endure, even if we loathe it, is what we slave away for week after week so that we can hand it over to others to feed their habit. You can't even buy the recognised forms of drugs either, prescribed or obtained without this seductive & conscienceless philtre.

Is this why people who have so much are often so toxic? The drug of choice of the elite.

I end with a little synch. I'd decided on the title for this post early on today, then I thought I'd use a picture of a scorpion - not liking what I found, I typed in Scorpio & found the image at the top. What I also found was the astrological symbol for Scorpio - the letter M as in money & it really did have a sting in it's tale (no offence meant here to any Scorpio's & I certainly don't believe that thing about all Scorpio's being murderers).

Cheers & may you have plenty of every good thing.

Looking towards the forgotten Continent

Ben from HPANWO has some inside info on past goings on in Antarctica - the land that is all too often forgotten.

http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/07/jack-of-antarctic.html